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Literally! Winter garden hosted an event celebrating Halloween but doggy style. Owners and their pets entered a parade in the farmer's market area to show off their costumes. It was hilarious to see some of these outfits, everything from snow white to even our favorite a chick magnet (as seen in this photo). One lady even brought out her breaded dragon dressed up as a dragon of course! Cristiana LOVED seeing the dogs all dressed up, but we had to stop her from trying to pet all of them.

We visited Sea World during their Halloween Spooktacular. We also joined the Sesame Street gang for the Count's breakfast (which I got a discount for since I'm annual pass holder yay!). It was so much fun, they had a show and Cristiana had the chance to take pictures w/all the characters. After breakfast we did some trick-or treating around the park and of course enjoyed the rides in the kiddie area as well. The girls had a blast together.

This year for Halloween Cristiana dressed up as a pirate, it was ultimately my choice since I bought her outfit dirt cheap on e-bay a few months back, but I have to say, Cristiana embraced it, she loved wearing that costume every time. Julie hosted again this year the Halloween party and as in previous times, it was a hit. The kids had so much fun together. I baked my 2nd tier cake for this party, and it turned out ok. All covered in fondant.

We ventured to Magic Kingdom w/Ava and Bryce and enjoyed the fall and Halloween decor they had as well as visits w/the princesses. Cristiana also rode the Barnstormer roller coaster they have in the kids area. She was a little nervous during the ride but said she really liked it at the end.

We visited Leu Gardens for their monthly story time. It had been a while since we had the chance to make it out there but the weather was great and it was another place to play w/all the fun features on our camera. Cristana loved the rose garden and all the greenery! I wonder who she gets her naturalistic side from?

Being an annual passholder w/SeaWorld has its benefits. I got a free one day ticket in the mail, so we were able to have a fun family day there. Jaime got to enjoy everything Cristiana loves to see and do, especially the kiddie rides. She went up on the nets play area today for the first time as well, she had a great time, though it was hard to maneuver.

So ever since I took my sewing class I have all these projects I'd like to do, have tons of fabric and tons of patterns, but never have the time to actually sit down and sew. I've only sewn Cristiana 3 items so far, and this one is my favorite one. Every year Cristiana dresses up for college football, but this year, with our tight budget I didn't want to order anything on-line so I found some UM fabric at JoAnns and saw this really easy to follow tutorial on You Tube and "Viola." Everyone at the sports bar we go to, to watch the games with the other alumni in town were talking about how cute her shirt was. I also made the cover for her hairband as well! I was very proud! It was a design by Maite.

During Sept. we went down to S.FL again for Jaime's job. Cristiana and I sneaked a trip down to Miami to visit my mom. We attempted to go the beach, but apparently the waters had high levels of bacteria due to a storm. We did end up visiting my Alma Matter, University of Miami. It was so exciting to see Cristiana walk down the same halls I did when I was there. Maybe she'll go there as well! " It's Great to be a Miami Hurricane"

Just some pictures from the trips we took to SeaWorld during the month of Sept. Cristiana LOVES Sea World, so we tend to visit A LOT. It also gave me a chance to play w/different features on our fairly new camera.

It was so exciting for us to start ballet, it felt like forever when we first signed up and had to wait for classes to begin. Cristiana was so excited but didn't know what to expect and least of all, she didn't expect me to leave her there while I waited outside. The studio so graciously offers this wonderful free ballet class for 2 year olds. Monica and Amelia shared this with all of us and we were lucky enough to get in (there's always a waiting list since it is a free class), but mom's are not allowed inside the studio during the class, I unfortunately didn't prep Cristiana for this since I thought it being the first class we would be allowed in, it was a surprise to me too. With all that, she did SO great on her own. Didn't even cry when I left, a bit surprised and looked like she was about to get upset but was quickly over it once class began. She danced and had a great time (the window has a semi see-thru curtain so you can get a quick peek at what's going on). We bought her ballet shoes that afternoon and she was ready for class the following Monday. The following Monday after ballet we took the girls to a local Ice cream shop and they played in a sitting area right next door to the ice cream shop. Cristiana really seems to Love ballet, what can I say, dancing is in her blood.

We had a great time celebrating with The Grant Fam and all their friends for Joe's birthday. Cristiana played in the pool, played with Ava and some new friends and even curled up under a blanket w/Ava. She ended the night with some yummy ice cream cake. We had a great time and it's always so nice to hang out Grants.

Just a few pics of Cristiana and Ava having fun together. These girls get even funnier together everytime. They enjoyed time in the pool, playing dress up, and bowling (which they didn't seem to understand very well). Lots of laughs!

We headed to Longwood for a fun story time w/ Kristin and Ava. Unfortunately we got lost and ended up missing 90% of the event but we decided to have a picnic lunch @ Big Tree (which I've been wanting to visit for a while) and got a shot of the girls standing in front of "The Senator" which is a 3,500 year old Bald Cypress that is 118ft tall with a circumference of 35ft (it's the state's largest cypress). They look so tiny next to that tree. It was a pretty cool sight to see.

I have to say that this age so far is my favorite! They do such funny and cute things. Here she is playing a concert for her "friends" which she placed so nicely on top of their "house" so that they could listen to her play. Should have caught this on video!

This summer Cristiana was able to take part in a 3 wk, once a week educational program called the Cub Club @ the Central Florida Zoo. The kids read animal books, pretended to be animals, sang animal songs, and the best part of all was experiencing the animals that came to visit them in the classroom, some of which they were able to touch such as a bunny, an opossum, and a few other visitors. After every class we enjoyed the zoo, which Cristiana has a deep love for (hmmm..I wonder who she got that from.), my little future biologist/zoologist. On our way out of the zoo, the girls got to enjoy the little train, which always seemed to be a big hit. Great educational memories, what more can you ask for?

Jaime had to travel to Fort Lauderdale for a few days so of course we joined him for the trip. My mom was able to meet us up there and we had a great time together. Cristiana LOVES her "Lela" and was so happy to play with her. We visited the mall and rode the carousel and just spent some good quality time together. On our trip down and back up we made sure to stop at the rest stops so Cristiana could visit the potty and she did, but THANK GOD for our travel potty (Potette Plus Potty), that thing has been a life saver because she always needed to go for a second time when there was no rest stop in sight and she always needed to do #2. I don't know what we would have done on this trip without that wonderful invention. She has also gotten a lot easier to travel with (for the most part). As long as we leave Fort Lauderdale around lunch time she'll usually nap a good portion of the ride home and she stays pretty entertained on the ride down with all the things I bring her. We still have trouble napping once we check into the hotel, but I guess that's expected for a toddler whose excited to be somewhere else.Still learning how to use our new camera, so bare w/me with some of the shots that may look the same.

As everyone knows we always enjoy free food, especially when it's Chick-fil-a. This is our 2nd year participating in cow appreciation day. All you have to do is dress semi-cow like and you get a free meal. What a great deal! This year I decided to incorporate my new sewing skills into making Cristiana a little pillow case dress out of a cow pattern fabric. I added a little white eyelet trim at the bottom and I think it turned out really cute.

We took Cristiana to see her 1st movie on the big screen. When she was about 6months, Cristiana went to the movies w/us to watch WALL-E but we obviously didn't let her watch the movie back then. We were all very excited since we are huge fans of anything Pixar, especially Toy Story and Cristiana has watched on SEVERAL occasions and LOVES Toy Story 1 & 2. We decked her out in her Toy Story shirt and she brought Buzz along for the ride. She sat still the entire time and laughed during a few of the funny parts. Cristiana seemed to really like the movie and mommy and papi did too.Still no camera so pictures aren't the best!

During the month of June I took one of the Wilton Courses @ Jo-Ann to help sharpen some of my cake decorating skills. The class was pretty much based on how to make flowers out of royal icing and some fondant. We did learn a few other skills such as basking weaving and a few other borders. I had a great time in the class and it just cont. to make my love grow for cake decorating. I would LOVE to one day be able to make a little bit of money off of it, but I have more learning and practice before I even think of that. I think my cookies are awesome and my cupcakes are pretty good too, but my cakes need more practice. So far I have Cristiana's tent cake I made for her 2nd birthday that came out pretty good and Toya's birthday cake that I think came out great except for the immense amount of red coloring I added to the red velvet which you could totally taste. My final cake for this class did not turn out as wonderful as I would have liked it to, I was sick with a fever the night I was making and frosting the cake. I over mixed my frosting which gave it a very porous look and I didn't feel like adding a crumb coat which caused me to have crumbs, but the color was fabulous (it was a beautiful green and the flowers were a beautiful rose pink, ivory, and light purple/pale blue). The border (beaded), as well as the leaves and vines came out great as well. Though the frosting was porous looking, I think the cake, overall, came out pretty good for the fact that I was not feeling well. The pics don't give it any justice of course, they were taken with our camcorder since we are still w/out a camera.

Earlier this month, we had a pretty quick but very windy storm, that to my surprise knocked down our wonderful big Oak that was sitting on our front lawn. I was looking out the window as it fell and though I was sad to see it go because it gave our house a huge amount of shade as well as it "framed" our house (as I like to say) I was relived that it decided to fall onto the street rather than on the house. Please excuse the bad photos since our camera is still out of commission.

On Tuesday we took a trip out to the beach (my sister needed a tan). Luckily we had beautiful clear skies, while Jaime called me from downtown Orlando telling me it was storming. Cristiana had a blast in the water with her Tia and enjoyed a nap in the car on the way back w/her Lela. It was a wonderful day!